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Reincarnation
Reincarnation best describes the concept where the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, is believed to return to live in a new human body, or, in some traditions, either as a human being, animal or plant. This doctrine is a central tenet within the majority of Indian religious traditions, such as Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism; the Buddhist concept of rebirth is also often referred to as reincarnation.Charles Taliaferro, Paul Draper, Philip L. Quinn, A Companion to Philosophy of Religion. John Wiley and Sons, 2010, page 640, Google Books. The idea was also fundamental to some Greek philosophers as well as other religions, such as Druidism, and later on, Spiritism, Theosophy, and Eckankar. It is also found in many small-scale societies around the world, in places such as Siberia, West Africa, North America, and Australia.Gananath Obeyesekere, Imagining Karma: Ethical Transformation in Amerindian, Buddhist, and Greek Rebirth. University of California Press, 2002, page 15. Although the majority of sects within Judaism, Christianity and Islam do not believe that individuals reincarnate, particular groups within these religions do refer to reincarnation; these groups include the mainstream historical and contemporary followers of Kabbalah, the Cathars, the Alawi, the DruzeHitti, Philip K (2007) 1924. Origins of the Druze People and Religion, with Extracts from their Sacred Writings (New Edition). Columbia University Oriental Studies. 28. London: Saqi. pp. 13–14. ISBN 0-86356-690-1 and the Rosicrucians.Heindel, Max (1985) 1908 The Rosicrucian Christianity Lectures (Collected Works): The Riddle of Life and Death. Oceanside, California. 4th edition. ISBN 0-911274-84-7 The historical relations between these sects and the beliefs about reincarnation that were characteristic of the Neoplatonism, Orphism, Hermeticism, Manicheanism and Gnosticism of the Roman era, as well as the Indian religions, is unclear. In recent decades, many Europeans and North Americans have developed an interest in reincarnation. Feature films, such as Kundun, What Dreams May Come and Birth, contemporary books by authors such as Carol Bowman and Vicki Mackenzie, as well as popular songs, regularly mention reincarnation. Some university researchers, such as Ian Stevenson and Jim B. Tucker, have explored the issue of reincarnation and published reports of children's memories of earlier lives in peer-reviewed journals and in books such as Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation and Life Before Life. Skeptics are critical of this work and many have stated like Carl Sagan (late) that more reincarnation research is needed.Tucker, Jim B. (2005). Life Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children's Memories of Previous Lives, p.186. Conceptual definitions The word "reincarnation" derives from Latin, literally meaning, "entering the flesh again". The Greek equivalent metempsychosis (μετεμψύχωσις) roughly corresponds to the common English phrase "transmigration of the soul" and also usually connotes reincarnation after death, as either human, animal, though emphasising the continuity of the soul, not the flesh. The term has been used by modern philosophers such as Kurt Gödel and has entered the English language. Another Greek term sometimes used synonymously is palingenesis, "being born again". There is no word corresponding exactly to the English terms "rebirth", "metempsychosis", "transmigration" or "reincarnation" in the traditional languages of Pāli and Sanskrit. The entire universal process that gives rise to the cycle of death and rebirth, governed by karma, is referred to as Samsara while the state one is born into, the individual process of being born or coming into the world in any way, is referred to simply as "birth" (jāti). Devas (gods) may also die and live again.Teachings of Queen Kunti by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, Chapter 18 "To become Brahma is not a very easy thing.... But he is also a living entity like us." Here the term "reincarnation" is not strictly applicable, yet Hindu gods are said to have reincarnated (see Avatar): Lord Vishnu is known for his ten incarnations, the Dashavatars. Celtic religion seems to have had reincarnating gods also. Many Christians regard Jesus as a divine incarnation. Some Christians and Muslims believe he and some prophets may incarnate again. Most Christians, however, believe that Jesus will come again in the Second Coming at the end of the world, although this is not a reincarnation. Some ghulat Shi'a Muslim sects also regard their founders as in some special sense divine incarnations (hulul). Philosophical and religious beliefs regarding the existence or non-existence of an unchanging 'self' have a direct bearing on how reincarnation is viewed within a given tradition. The Buddha lived at a time of great philosophical creativity in India when many conceptions of the nature of life and death were proposed. Some were materialist, holding that there was no existence and that the self is annihilated upon death. Others believed in a form of cyclic existence, where a being is born, lives, dies and then is re-born, but in the context of a type of determinism or fatalism in which karma played no role. Others were "eternalists", postulating an eternally existent self or soul comparable to that in Judaic monotheism: the ātman survives death and reincarnates as another living being, based on its karmic inheritance. This is the idea that has become dominant (with certain modifications) in modern Hinduism. The Buddhist concept of reincarnation differs from others in that there is no eternal "soul", "spirit' or self" but only a "stream of consciousness" that links life with life. The actual process of change from one life to the next is called punarbhava (Sanskrit) or punabbhava (Pāli), literally "becoming again", or more briefly bhava, "becoming", and some English-speaking Buddhists prefer the term "rebirth" or "re-becoming" to render this term as they take "reincarnation" to imply a fixed entity that is reborn."Reincarnation in Buddhism: What the Buddha Didn't Teach" By Barbara O'Brien, About.comhttp://buddhism.about.com/od/karmaandrebirth/a/reincarnation.htm Popular Jain cosmology and Buddhist cosmology as well as a number of schools of Hinduism posit rebirth in many worlds and in varied forms. In Buddhist tradition the process occurs across five or six realms of existence,Transform Your Life: A Blissful Journey, pages 52-55), Tharpa Publications (2001, US ed. 2007) ISBN 978-0-9789067-4-0 including the human, any kind of animal and several types of supernatural being. It is said in Tibetan Buddhism that it is very rare for a person to be reborn in the immediate next life as a human Gilgul, Gilgul neshamot or Gilgulei Ha Neshamot (Heb. גלגול הנשמות) refers to the concept of reincarnation in Kabbalistic Judaism, found in much Yiddish literature among Ashkenazi Jews. Gilgul means "cycle" and neshamot is "souls." The equivalent Arabic term is tanasukh:Mullasadra.org the belief is found among Shi'a ghulat Muslim sects. History Antiquity Origins The origins of the notion of reincarnation are obscure. They apparently date to the Iron Age (around 1200 BCE). Discussion of the subject appears in the philosophical traditions of India and Greece from about the 6th century BCE, but is conspicuously absent from the earlier Vedic texts of India. Also during the Iron Age, the Greek Pre-Socratics discussed reincarnation, and the Celtic Druids are also reported to have taught a doctrine of reincarnation.Diodorus Siculus thought the Druids might have been influenced by the teachings of PythagorasDiodorius Siculus v.28.6; Hippolytus Philosophumena i.25. The origin of the Indian tradition is usually assumed to lie in the non-Vedic shramana traditions, which would explain why it only enters the historical record with the adoption of sramana elements into mainstream Brahmin orthodoxy at the end of the Vedic periodGavin D. Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism, Cambridge University Press (1996), UK ISBN 0-521-43878-0 p. 86 - "These concepts were certainly circulating among the Sramanas, and Jainism and Buddhism developed specific and sophisticated ideas about the process of transmigration. It is very possible that the karmas and reincarnation entered the mainstream brahaminical thought from the sramana or the renouncer traditions."Padmanabh S. Jaini, Collected Paper on Buddhist Studies, Motilal Banarsidass 2001, ISBN 81-208-1776-1: "the doctrine of karma... can perhaps be explained by the assumption that it was, like that of the transmigration of soul, of non-brahmanical origin." Page 51. along with the associated concepts of karma, samsara and moksha.Govind Chandra Pande, (1994) Life and Thought of Sankaracarya, Motilal Banarsidass, p.135, ISBN 81-208-1104-6: "Early Upanishad thinkers like Yajnavalkya were acquainted with the sramanic thinking and tried to incorporate these ideals of Karma, Samsara and Moksa into the vedic thought..." Some scholars suggest that the idea is original to the Buddha.Arvind Sharma's review of Hajime Nakamura's A History of Early Vedanta Philosophy, Philosophy East and West, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Jul., 1987), page 330. Another possibility is an origin in the native tribal religions of the Ganges valley, or in prehistoric Dravidian traditions of South India.Gavin D. Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism, Cambridge University Press (1996), UK ISBN 0-521-43878-0 p. 86 - "A third alternative is that the origin of transmigration theory lies outside of vedic or sramana traditions in the tribal religions of the Ganges valley, or even in Dravidian traditions of south India." Whatever its ultimate origin, Indian discussion of reincarnation enters the historical record from about the 6th century BCE, with the development of the Advaita Vedanta tradition in the early Upanishads (around the middle of the first millennium BCE), Gautama Buddha (623-543 BCE)"As is now almost universally accepted by informed Indological scholarship, a re-examination of early Buddhist historical material, ..., necessitates a redating of the Buddha's death to between 411 and 400 BCE." Paul Dundas, The Jains, 2nd edition, (Routledge, 2001), p. 24. as well as Mahavira, the 24th Tirthankara of Jainism.Karel Werner, The Longhaired Sage in The Yogi and the Mystic, Curzon Press, 1989, page 34. Wayman... traces them particularly in the older Upanishads, in early Buddhism, and in some later literature." Early Greek discussion of the concept likewise dates to the 6th century BCE. An early Greek thinker known to have considered rebirth is Pherecydes of Syros (fl. 540 BCE).Schibli, S., Hermann, Pherekydes of Syros, p. 104, Oxford Univ. Press 2001 His younger contemporary Pythagoras (c. 570-c. 495 BCE"The dates of his life cannot be fixed exactly, but assuming the approximate correctness of the statement of Aristoxenus (ap. Porph. V.P. 9) that he left Samos to escape the tyranny of Polycrates at the age of forty, we may put his birth round about 570 BCE, or a few years earlier. The length of his life was variously estimated in antiquity, but it is agreed that he lived to a fairly ripe old age, and most probably he died at about seventy-five or eighty." William Keith Chambers Guthrie, (1978), A history of Greek philosophy, Volume 1: The earlier Presocratics and the Pythagoreans, page 173. Cambridge University Press), its first famous exponent, instituted societies for its diffusion. Plato (428/427 – 348/347 BCE) presented accounts of reincarnation in his works, particularly the Myth of Er. Proponents of cultural transmission have looked for links between Iron Age Celtic, Greek and Vedic philosophy and religion,one modern scholar has speculated that Buddhist missionaries had been sent to Britain by the Indian king Ashoka. Donald A.Mackenzie, Buddhism in pre-Christian Britain (1928:21). some even suggesting that belief in reincarnation was present in Proto-Indo-European religion. M. Dillon and N. Chadwick, The Celtic Realms, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, Authorities have not agreed on how the notion arose in Greece: sometimes Pythagoras is said to have been Pherecydes' pupil, sometimes to have introduced it with the doctrine of Orphism, a Thracian religion that was to be important in the diffusion of reincarnation, or else to have brought the teaching from India. In Phaedo, Plato makes his teacher Socrates, prior to his death, state; "I am confident that there truly is such a thing as living again, and that the living spring from the dead." However Xenophon does not mention Socrates as believing in reincarnation and Plato may have systematised Socrates' thought with concepts he took directly from Pythagoreanism or Orphism. In ancient European, Iranian and Indian agricultural cultures, the life cycles of birth, death, and rebirth were recoginized as a replica of natural agricultural cycles.Ara, Mitra (2008). Eschatology in the Indo-Iranian traditions: The Genesis and Transformation of a Doctrine. Peter Lang Publishing Inc., New York, USA. ISBN 1433102501. pp. 99-100. Early Hinduism and Buddhism The systematic attempt to attain first-hand knowledge of past lives has been developed in various ways in different places. The Rig Veda makes numerous references to rebirths, although it portrays reincarnation as "redeaths" (punarmrtyu.) It declares, "Each death repeats the death of the primordial man (purusa), which was also the first sacrifice" (RV 10:90).P. 99 Religion and aging in the Indian tradition By Shrinivas Tilak The following is another excerpt from the Rig Veda (Book 10 Part 02, HYMN XVI): ::Burn him not up, nor quite consume him, Agni: let not his body or his skin be scattered. O Jatavedas, when thou hast matured him, then send him on his way unto the Fathers. ::When thou hast made him ready, Jatavedas, then do thou give him over to the Fathers. When he attains unto the life that waits him, he shall become the Deities' controller. ::The Sun receive thine eye, the Wind thy spirit; go, as thy merit is, to earth or heaven. Go, if it be thy lot, unto the waters; go, make thine home in plants with all thy members. ::Thy portion is the goat: with heat consume him: let thy fierce flame, thy glowing splendour, burn him With thine auspicious forms, o Jatavedas, bear this man to the region of the pious. ::Again, O Agni, to the Fathers send him who, offered in thee, goes with our oblations. Wearing new life let him increase his offspring: let him rejoin a body, Jatavedas. The early Buddhist texts discuss techniques for recalling previous births, predicated on the development of high levels of meditative concentration.Paul Williams, Anthony Tribe, Buddhist thought: a complete introduction to the Indian tradition. Routledge, 2000, page 84. The later Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, which exhibit heavy Buddhist influence,Karel Werner, The Yogi and the Mystic. Routledge 1994, page 27. give similar instructions on how to attain the ability.Gavin D. Flood, The ascetic self: subjectivity, memory and tradition. Cambridge University Press, 2004, page 136. The Buddha reportedly warned that this experience can be misleading and should be interpreted with care.Joanna Macy, Mutual causality in Buddhism and general systems theory: the dharma of natural systems. SUNY Press, 1991, page 163. Tibetan Buddhism has developed a unique 'science' of death and rebirth, a good deal of which is set down in what is popularly known as The Tibetan Book of the Dead. The Hasidic tzadik was believed to know the past lives of each person through his semi-prophetic abilities. Classical Antiquity The Orphic religion, which taught reincarnation, first appeared in Thrace in north-eastern Greece and Bulgaria, about the 6th century BC, organized itself into mystery schools at Eleusis and elsewhere, and produced a copious literature.Linforth, Ivan M. (1941) The Arts of Orpheus Arno Press, New York, OCLC 514515Long, Herbert S. (1948) A Study of the doctrine of metempsychosis in Greece, from Pythagoras to Plato (Long's 1942 Ph.D. dissertation) Princeton, New Jersey, OCLC 1472399Long, Herbert S. (16 February 1948) "Plato's Doctrine of Metempsychosis and Its Source" The Classical Weekly 41(10): pp. 149—155 Orpheus, its legendary founder, is said to have taught that the immortal soul aspires to freedom while the body holds it prisoner. The wheel of birth revolves, the soul alternates between freedom and captivity round the wide circle of necessity. Orpheus proclaimed the need of the grace of the gods, Dionysus in particular, and of self-purification until the soul has completed the spiral ascent of destiny to live for ever. An association between Pythagorean philosophy and reincarnation was routinely accepted throughout antiquity. In the Republic Plato makes Socrates tell how Er, the son of Armenius, miraculously returned to life on the twelfth day after death and recounted the secrets of the other world. There are myths and theories to the same effect in other dialogues, in the Chariot allegory of the Phaedrus, in the Meno, Timaeus and Laws. The soul, once separated from the body, spends an indeterminate amount of time in "formland" (see The Allegory of the Cave in The Republic) and then assumes another body. In later Greek literature the doctrine is mentioned in a fragment of MenanderMenander, The Inspired Woman and satirized by Lucian.Lucian, Gallus, 18 et seq. In Roman literature it is found as early as Ennius,Poesch, Jessie (1962) "Ennius and Basinio of Parma" Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 25(1/2): pp. 116—118, page 117, FN15 who, in a lost passage of his Annals, told how he had seen Homer in a dream, who had assured him that the same soul which had animated both the poets had once belonged to a peacock. Persius in his satires (vi. 9) laughs at this: it is referred to also by LucretiusLucretius, (i. 124) and Horace.Horace, Epistles, II. i. 52 Virgil works the idea into his account of the Underworld in the sixth book of the Aeneid.Virgil, The Aeneid, vv. 724 et seq. It persists down to the late classic thinkers, Plotinus and the other Neoplatonists. In the Hermetica, a Graeco-Egyptian series of writings on cosmology and spirituality attributed to Hermes Trismegistus/Thoth, the doctrine of reincarnation is central. In Greco-Roman thought, the concept of metempsychosis disappeared with the rise of Early Christianity, reincarnation being incompatible with the Christian core doctrine of salvation of the faithful after death. It has been suggested that some of the early Church Fathers, especially Origen still entertained a belief in the possibility of reincarnation, but evidence is tenuous, and the writings of Origen as they have come down to us speak explicitly against it.The book Reincarnation in Christianity, by the theosophist Geddes MacGregor (1978) asserted that Origen believed in reincarnation. MacGregor is convinced that Origen believed in and taught about reincarnation but that his texts written about the subject have been destroyed. He admits that there is no extant proof for that position. The allegation was also repeated by Shirley MacLaine in her book Out On a Limb. Origen does discuss the concept of transmigration (metensomatosis) from Greek philosophy, but it is repeatedly stated that this concept is not a part of the Christian teaching or scripture in his Comment on the Gospel of Matthew (which survives only in a 6th-century Latin translatio): "In this place Jesus said Elijah was come and referred to John the Baptist it does not appear to me that by Elijah the soul is spoken of, lest I fall into the doctrine of transmigration, which is foreign to the Church of God, and not handed down by the apostles, nor anywhere set forth in the scriptures" (13:1:46–53, see Commentary on Matthew, Book XIII Some early Christian Gnostic sects professed reincarnation. The Sethians and followers of Valentinus believed in it.Much of this is documented in R.E. Slater's book Paradise Reconsidered. The followers of Bardaisan of Mesopotamia, a sect of the 2nd century deemed heretical by the Catholic Church, drew upon Chaldean astrology, to which Bardaisan's son Harmonius, educated in Athens, added Greek ideas including a sort of metempsychosis. Another such teacher was Basilides (132–? CE/AD), known to us through the criticisms of Irenaeus and the work of Clement of Alexandria. (see also Neoplatonism and Gnosticism and Buddhism and Gnosticism) In the third Christian century Manichaeism spread both east and west from Babylonia, then within the Sassanid Empire, where its founder Mani lived about 216–276. Manichaean monasteries existed in Rome in 312 AD. Noting Mani's early travels to the Kushan Empire and other Buddhist influences in Manichaeism, Richard FoltzRichard Foltz, Religions of the Silk Road, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010 attributes Mani's teaching of reincarnation to Buddhist influence. However the inter-relation of Manicheanism, Orphism, Gnosticism and neo-Platonism is far from clear. Taoism Taoist documents from as early as the Han Dynasty claimed that Lao Tzu appeared on earth as different persons in different times beginning in the legendary era of Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. The (ca. 3rd century BC) Chuang Tzu states: "Birth is not a beginning; death is not an end. There is existence without limitation; there is continuity without a starting-point. Existence without limitation is Space. Continuity without a starting point is Time. There is birth, there is death, there is issuing forth, there is entering in."tr. Giles 1889, p. 304 The Celts In the 1st century BC Alexander Cornelius Polyhistor wrote; Julius Caesar recorded that the druids of Gaul, Britain and Ireland had metempsychosis as one of their core doctrines;Julius Caesar, "De Bello Gallico", VI Middle Ages Around the 11-12th century several reincarnationist movements were persecuted as heresies, through the establishment of the Inquisition in the Latin west. These included the Cathar, Paterene or Albigensian church of western Europe, the Paulician movement, which arose in Armenia, and the Bogomils in Bulgaria.Steven Runciman, The Medieval Manichee: A Study of the Christian Dualist Heresy, 1982, isbn=0521289262, Cambridge University Press, The Bogomils, Google Books Christian sects such as the Bogomils and the Cathars, who professed reincarnation and other gnostic beliefs, were referred to as "Manichean", and are today sometimes described by scholars as "Neo-Manichean".For example Dondaine, Antoine. O.P. Un traite neo-manicheen du XIIIe siecle: Le Liber de duobus principiis, suivi d'un fragment de rituel Cathare (Rome: Institutum Historicum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 1939) As there is no known Manichaean mythology or terminology in the writings of these groups there has been some dispute among historians as to whether these groups truly were descendants of Manichaeism. Norse mythology holding the dying Helgi in their first incarnation of three.]] Reincarnation also appears in Norse mythology, in the Poetic Edda. The editor of the Poetic Edda says that Helgi Hjörvarðsson and his mistress, the valkyrie Sváfa, whose love story is told in the poem Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar, were reborn as Helgi Hundingsbane and the valkyrie Sigrún. Helgi and Sigrún's love story is the matter of a part of the Völsunga saga and the lays Helgakviða Hundingsbana I and II. They were reborn a second time as Helgi Haddingjaskati and the valkyrie Kára, but unfortunately their story, Káruljóð, only survives in a probably modified form in the Hrómundar saga Gripssonar. The belief in reincarnation may have been commonplace among the Norse since the annotator of the Poetic Edda wrote that people formerly used to believe in it: }} Renaissance and Early Modern period While reincarnation has been a matter of faith in some communities from an early date it has also frequently been argued for on principle, as Plato does when he argues that the number of souls must be finite because souls are indestructible,"the souls must always be the same, for if none be destroyed they will not diminish in number." Republic X, 611. The Republic of Plato By Plato, Benjamin Jowett Edition: 3 Published by Clarendon press, 1888. Benjamin Franklin held a similar view.In a letter to his friend George Whatley written May 23, 1785: Jennifer T. Kennedy, Death Effects: Revisiting the conceit of Franklin's Memoir, Early American Literature, 2001. JSTOR Sometimes such convictions, as in Socrates' case, arise from a more general personal faith, at other times from anecdotal evidence such as Plato makes Socrates offer in the Myth of Er. During the Renaissance translations of Plato, the Hermetica and other works fostered new European interest in reincarnation. Marsilio FicinoMarsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology, 17.3-4 argued that Plato's references to reincarnation were intended allegorically, Shakespeare made fun"Again, Rosalind in "As You Like It" (Act III., Scene 2), says: I was never so be-rhimed that I can remember since Pythagoras's time, when I was an Irish rat" — alluding to the doctrine of the transmigration of souls." William H. Grattan Flood, quoted at Libraryireland.com but Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake by authorities after being found guilty of heresy by the Roman Inquisition for his teachings.Boulting, 1914. pp. 163-64 But the Greek philosophical works remained available and, particularly in north Europe, were discussed by groups such as the Cambridge Platonists. 19th to 20th centuries (1842 - 1910) was an early psychical researcher. ]] By the 19th century the philosophers SchopenhauerSchopenhauer, A: "Parerga und Paralipomena" (Eduard Grisebach edition), On Religion, Section 177 and NietzscheNietzsche and the Doctrine of Metempsychosis, in J. Urpeth & J. Lippitt, Nietzsche and the Divine, Manchester: Clinamen, 2000 could access the Indian scriptures for discussion of the doctrine of reincarnation, which recommended itself to the American Transcendentalists Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson and was adapted by Francis Bowen into Christian Metempsychosis. By the early 20th century, interest in reincarnation had been introduced into the nascent discipline of psychology, largely due to the influence of William James, who raised aspects of the philosophy of mind, comparative religion, the psychology of religious experience and the nature of empiricism.David Hammerman, Lisa Lenard, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Reincarnation, Penguin, p.34. For relevant works by James, see; William James, Human Immortality: Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine (the Ingersoll Lecture, 1897), The Will to Believe, Human Immortality (1956) Dover Publications, ISBN 0-486-20291-7, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (1902), ISBN 0-14-039034-0, Essays in Radical Empiricism (1912) Dover Publications 2003, ISBN 0-486-43094-4 James was influential in the founding of the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) in New York City in 1885, three years after the British Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was inaugurated in London, leading to systematic, critical investigation of paranormal phenomena. At this time popular awareness of the idea of reincarnation was boosted by the Theosophical Society's dissemination of systematised and universalised Indian concepts and also by the influence of magical societies like The Golden Dawn. Notable personalities like Annie Besant, W. B. Yeats and Dion Fortune made the subject almost as familiar an element of the popular culture of the west as of the east. By 1924 the subject could be satirised in popular children's books.Richmal Crompton, More William, George Newnes, London, 1924, XIII. William and the Ancient Souls; "The memory usually came in a flash. For instance, you might remember in a flash when you were looking at a box of matches that you had been Guy Fawkes." Théodore Flournoy was among the first to study a claim of past-life recall in the course of his investigation of the medium Hélène Smith, published in 1900, in which he defined the possibility of cryptomnesia in such accounts.Théodore Flournoy, Des Indes à la planète Mars, Étude sur un cas de somnambulisme avec glossolalie, Éditions Alcan et Eggimann, Paris et Genève, 1900 Carl Gustav Jung, like Flournoy based in Switzerland, also emulated him in his thesis based on a study of cryptomnesia in psychism. Later Jung would emphasise the importance of the persistence of memory and ego in psychological study of reincarnation; "This concept of rebirth necessarily implies the continuity of personality... (that) one is able, at least potentially, to remember that one has lived through previous existences, and that these existences were one's own...". Hypnosis, used in psychoanalysis for retrieving forgotten memories, was eventually tried as a means of studying the phenomenon of past life recall. Reincarnation research Psychiatrist Ian Stevenson, from the University of Virginia, investigated many reports of young children who claimed to remember a past life. He conducted more than 2,500 case studies over a period of 40 years and published twelve books, including Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation and Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect. Stevenson methodically documented each child's statements and then identified the deceased person the child identified with, and verified the facts of the deceased person's life that matched the child's memory. He also matched birthmarks and birth defects to wounds and scars on the deceased, verified by medical records such as autopsy photographs, in Reincarnation and Biology.Cadoret, Remi. Book Review: European Cases of the Reincarnation Type The American Journal of Psychiatry, April 2005. Stevenson searched for disconfirming evidence and alternative explanations for the reports, and believed that his strict methods ruled out all possible "normal" explanations for the child’s memories. However, a significant majority of Stevenson's reported cases of reincarnation originated in Eastern societies, where dominant religions often permit the concept of reincarnation. Following this type of criticism, Stevenson published a book on European Cases of the Reincarnation Type. Other people who have undertaken reincarnation research include Jim B. Tucker, Brian Weiss, and Raymond Moody. Some skeptics, such as Paul Edwards, have analyzed many of these accounts, and called them anecdotal.Rockley, Richard. Book Review: Children who remember previous lives Skeptics suggest that claims of evidence for reincarnation originate from selective thinking and from the false memories that often result from one's own belief system and basic fears, and thus cannot be counted as empirical evidence. Carl Sagan referred to examples apparently from Stevenson's investigations in his book The Demon-Haunted World as an example of carefully collected empirical data, though he rejected reincarnation as a parsimonious explanation for the stories. The most cited objection to reincarnation is that there is no mechanism known to modern science that would enable a personality to survive death and travel to another body, and researchers such as Professor Stevenson acknowledge this limitation. Another objection is that the vast majority of people do not remember previous lives. A possible counter-argument to this is that not all people reincarnate, although Professor Stevenson once proposed "maybe we're supposed to forget, but sometimes that system malfunctions, and we don't forget completely". Stevenson found that in the majority of cases he investigated people who remembered past lives had met some sort of violent or untimely death. Some people see a problem with population increase as there seems to be no way of "new souls" coming into existence, though this is addressed by many philosophies: Saiva Siddhanta believes that new souls constantly emanate from God like sparks from a fire; Other explanations include souls moving between people and animals, multiple planets and the time between incarnations decreasing as population increases. Reincarnation in the West During recent decades, many people in the West have developed an interest in reincarnation. Feature films, such as The Reincarnation of Peter Proud, Dead Again, Kundun, Fluke, What Dreams May Come and Birth, contemporary books by authors such as Carol Bowman and Vicki Mackenzie, as well as popular songs, regularly mention reincarnation. Recent studies have indicated that some Westerners accept the idea of reincarnation including certain contemporary Christians,Tony Walter and Helen Waterhouse, "A Very Private Belief: Reincarnation in Contemporary England". Sociology of Religion, Vol. 60, 1999 modern Neopagans, followers of Spiritism, Theosophists and students of esoteric philosophies such as Kabbalah, and Gnostic and Esoteric Christianity as well as of Indian religions. Demographic survey data from 1999-2002 shows a significant minority of people from Europe and America, where there is reasonable freedom of thought and access to ideas but no outstanding recent reincarnationist tradition, believe we had a life before we were born, will survive death and be born again physically. The mean for the Nordic countries is 22%. The belief in reincarnation is particularly high in the Baltic countries, with Lithuania having the highest figure for the whole of Europe, 44%. The lowest figure is in East Germany, 12%. In Russia, about one-third believes in reincarnation. The effect of communist anti-religious ideas on the beliefs of the populations of Eastern Europe seems to have been rather slight, if any, except apparently in East Germany. Overall, 22% of respondents in Western Europe believe in reincarnation. According to a 2005 Gallup poll 20 percent of U.S. adults believe in reincarnation. Recent surveys by the Barna Group, a Christian research nonprofit organization, have found that a quarter of U.S. Christians, including 10 percent of all born-again Christians, embrace the idea.China Regulates Buddhist Reincarnation Skeptic Carl Sagan asked the Dalai Lama what would he do if a fundamental tenet of his religion (reincarnation) were definitively disproved by science. The Dalai Lama answered; "if science can disprove reincarnation, Tibetan Buddhism would abandon reincarnation... but it's going to be mighty hard to disprove reincarnation." Ian Stevenson reported that belief in reincarnation is held (with variations in details) by adherents of almost all major religions except Christianity and Islam. In addition, between 20 and 30 percent of persons in western countries who may be nominal Christians also believe in reincarnation.Jane Henry (2005). Parapsychology: research on exceptional experiences Routledge, p. 224. One 1999 study by Walter and Waterhouse reviewed the previous data on the level of reincarnation belief and performed a set of thirty in-depth interviews in Britain among people who did not belong to a religion advocating reincarnation. The authors reported that surveys have found about one fifth to one quarter of Europeans have some level of belief in reincarnation, with similar results found in the USA. In the interviewed group, the belief in the existence of this phenomenon appeared independent of their age, or the type of religion that these people belonged to, with most being Christians. The beliefs of this group also did not appear to contain any more than usual of "new age" ideas (broadly defined) and the authors interpreted their ideas on reincarnation as "one way of tackling issues of suffering", but noted that this seemed to have little effect on their private lives. Waterhouse also published a detailed discussion of beliefs expressed in the interviews. She noted that although most people "hold their belief in reincarnation quite lightly" and were unclear on the details of their ideas, personal experiences such as past-life memories and near-death experiences had influenced most believers, although only a few had direct experience of these phenomena. Waterhouse analyzed the influences of second-hand accounts of reincarnation, writing that most of the people in the survey had heard other people's accounts of past-lives from regression hypnosis and dreams and found these fascinating, feeling that there "must be something in it" if other people were having such experiences. Contemporary religious philosophies Hinduism In Hinduism (Sanatana Dharma), the soul (atman) is immortal and reincarnated through the cycle of lives known as Samsara, each time in a body which is born and dies. People gain karma by acting, which prompts the need for reincarnation. The only way to escape the cycle of lives (reincarnation) is through meditation (Moksha) which connects one with the rest of the universe. The Bhagavad Gita states; ) repeatedly takes on a physical body.]] and, According to the Hindu sage Adi Shankaracharya, the world - as we ordinarily understand it - is like a dream: fleeting and illusory. To be trapped in samsara (the cycle of birth and death) is a result of ignorance of the true nature of our existence. It is ignorance (avidya) of one's true self that leads to ego-consciousness, grounding one in desire and a perpetual chain of reincarnation. The idea is intricately linked to action (karma), a concept first recorded in the Upanishads. Every action has a reaction and the force determines one's next incarnation. One is reborn through desire: a person desires to be born because he or she wants to enjoy a body,See Bhagavad Gita XVI.8-20 which can never bring deep, lasting happiness or peace (ānanda). After many births every person becomes dissatisfied and begins to seek higher forms of happiness through spiritual experience. When, after spiritual practice (sādhanā), a person realizes that the true "self" is the immortal soul rather than the body or the ego all desires for the pleasures of the world will vanish since they will seem insipid compared to spiritual ānanda. When all desire has vanished the person will not be born again.Rinehart, Robin, ed., Contemporary Hinduism''19-21 (2004) ISBN 1-57607-905-8 When the cycle of rebirth thus comes to an end, a person is said to have attained liberation (moksha).Karel Werner, ''A Popular Dictionary of Hinduism 110 (Curzon Press 1994) ISBN 0-7007-0279-2 All schools agree this implies the cessation of worldly desires and freedom from the cycle of birth and death, though the exact definition differs. Followers of the Advaita Vedanta school believe they will spend eternity absorbed in the perfect peace and happiness of the realization that all existence is One Brahman of which the soul is part. Dvaita schools perform worship with the goal of spending eternity in a spiritual world or heaven (loka) in the blessed company of the Supreme Being.Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Translation by Swami Nikhilananda (8th Ed. 1992) ISBN 0-911206-01-9 Jainism Jainism is historically connected with the sramana tradition with which the earliest mentions of reincarnation are associated."The sudden appearance of this theory karma in a full-fledged form is likely to be due, as already pointed out, to an impact of the wandering muni-and-shramana-cult, coming down from the pre-Vedic non-Aryan time." Kashi Nsadcwath Upadhyaya, Early Buddhism and the Bhagavadgita. Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1998, page 76. Ahimsa is Jainism's symbol for the cycle of samsara. Buddhism , Lord of Death and Desire, clutches a Wheel of Reincarnation which outlines the Buddhist cycle of reincarnation.]] The early Buddhist texts make it clear that there is no permanent consciousness that moves from life to life.The many references in early Buddhist scriptures include; Mahakammavibhanga Sutta (Majjhima Nikaya 136); Upali Sutta (Majjhima Nikaya 56); Kukkuravatika Sutta (Majjhima Nikaya 57); Moliyasivaka Sutta (Samyutta Nikaya 36.21); Sankha Sutta (Samyutta Nikaya 42.8). For an explicit rejection of this view in the early texts see David J. Kalupahana, Causality--the central philosophy of Buddhism. University Press of Hawaii, 1975, page 119. Gautama Buddha taught a distinct concept of rebirth constrained by the concepts of anattā, that there is no irreducible ātman or "self" tying these lives together, which serves as a contrast to Hinduism, where everything is connected, and in a sense, "everything is everything."Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught (London: Gordon Fraser Limited, 1990), p. 51 and anicca, that all compounded things are subject to dissolution, including all the components of the human person and personality. In Buddhist doctrine the evolving consciousness (Pali: samvattanika-viññana)(M.1.256) "Post-Classical Developments in the Concepts of Karma and Rebirth in Theravada Buddhism." by Bruce Matthews. in Karma and Rebirth: Post-Classical Developments State Univ of New York Press: 1986 ISBN 0-87395-990-6 pg 125Collins, Steven. Selfless persons: imagery and thought in Theravāda Buddhism Cambridge University Press, 1990. ISBN 0-521-39726-X pg 215, Google Books or stream of consciousness (Pali: viññana-sotam,(D.3.105) "Post-Classical Developments in the Concepts of Karma and Rebirth in Theravada Buddhism. by Bruce Matthews. in Karma and Rebirth: Post-Classical Developments State Univ of New York Press: 1986 ISBN 0-87395-990-6 pg 125 Sanskrit: vijñāna-srotām, vijñāna-santāna, or citta-santāna) upon death (or "the dissolution of the aggregates" (P. khandha''s, S. ''skandha''s)), becomes one of the contributing causes for the arising of a new aggregation. At the death of one personality, a new one comes into being, much as the flame of a dying candle can serve to light the flame of another.Tucker, 2005, p.216 The consciousness in the new person is neither identical to nor entirely different from that in the deceased but the two form a causal continuum or stream. Transmigration is the effect of ''karma (kamma)His Holiness the Dalai Lama, How to Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life (New York: Atria Books, 2002), p. 46Bruce Matthews in Ronald Wesley Neufeldt, editor, Karma and Rebirth: Post Classical Developments. SUNY Press, 1986, page 125. Google.com or volitional action.Rahula, p. 144 The basic cause is the abiding of consciousness in ignorance (Pali: avijja, Sanskrit: avidya): when ignorance is uprooted rebirth ceases.Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Accesstoinsight.org. The Buddha's detailed conception of the connections between action (karma), rebirth and causality is set out in the twelve links of dependent origination. The empirical, changing self does not only affect the world about it, it also generates, consciously and unconsciously, a subjective image of the world in which it lives as 'reality'. It "tunes in" to a particular level of consciousness which has a particular range of objects, selectively notices such objects and forms a partial model of reality in which the ego is the crucial reference point. Vipassana meditation uses "bare attention" to mind-states without interfering, owning or judging. Observation reveals each moment as an experience of an individual mind-state such as a thought, a memory, a feeling or a perception that arises, exists and ceases. This limits the power of desire, which, according to the second noble truth of Buddhism, is the cause of suffering (dukkha), and leads to Nirvana (nibbana, vanishing (of the self-idea)) in which self-oriented models are transcended and "the world stops".Peter Harvey, The Selfless Mind. Curzon Press 1995, page 247. Thus consciousness is a continuous birth and death of mind-states: rebirth is the persistence of this process. While all Buddhist traditions accept rebirth there is no unified view about precisely how events unfold after death. The Tibetan schools hold to the notion of a bardo (intermediate state) that can last up to forty-nine days. An accomplished or realized practitioner (by maintaining conscious awareness during the death process) can choose to return to samsara, that many lamas choose to be born again and again as humans and are called tulkus or incarnate lamas. The Sarvastivada school believed that between death and rebirth there is a sort of limbo in which beings do not yet reap the consequences of their previous actions but may still influence their rebirth. The death process and this intermediate state were believed to offer a uniquely favourable opportunity for spiritual awakening. Theravada Buddhism generally denies there is an intermediate state, though some early Buddhist texts seem to support it,Macmillan Encyclopedia of Buddhism. Vol. 1, p. 377The Connected Discourses of the Buddha. A Translation of the Samyutta Nikaya, Bhikkhu Bodhi, Translator. Wisdom Publications but asserts that rebirth is immediate. Some schools conclude that karma continues to exist and adhere to the person until it works out its consequences. For the Sautrantika school each act "perfumes" the individual or "plants a seed" that later germinates. In another view remaining impure aggregates, skandhas, reform consciousness. Tibetan Buddhism stresses the state of mind at the time of death. To die with a peaceful mind will stimulate a virtuous seed and a fortunate rebirth, a disturbed mind will stimulate a non-virtuous seed and an unfortunate rebirth.Transform Your Life: A Blissful Journey, page 52), Tharpa Publications (2001, US ed. 2007) ISBN 978-0-9789067-4-0 The medieval Pali scholar Buddhaghosa labeled the consciousness that constitutes the condition for a new birth as described in the early texts "rebirth-linking consciousness" (patisandhi). Sant mystics and Sikhism Reincarnation remained a tenet of the Sant Bhakti movement and of related mystics on the frontiers of Islam and Hinduism such as the Baul minstrels, the Kabir panth and the Sikh Brotherhood. Sikhs believe the soul is passed from one body to another until Liberation. If we perform good deeds and actions and remember the Creator, we attain a better life while, if we carry out evil actions and sinful deeds, we will be incarnated in “lower” life forms. God may pardon wrongs and release us.Reincarnation as understood by Sikh Religion Otherwise reincarnation is due to the law of cause and effect but does not create any caste or differences among people. Eckankar is a Western presentation of Sant mysticism. It teaches that the soul is eternal and either chooses an incarnation for growth or else an incarnation is imposed because of Karma. The soul is perfected through a series of incarnations until it arrives at "Personal Mastery". African Vodun masquerade dance garment in the permanent collection of The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis]] The Yoruba believe in reincarnation within the family. The names Babatunde (father returns), Yetunde (Mother returns), Babatunji (Father wakes once again) and Sotunde (The wise man returns) all offer vivid evidence of the Ifa concept of familial or lineal rebirth. There is no simple guarantee that your grandfather or great uncle will "come back" in the birth of your child, however. Whenever the time arrives for a spirit to return to Earth (otherwise known as The Marketplace) through the conception of a new life in the direct bloodline of the family, one of the component entities of a person's being returns, while the other remains in Heaven (Ikole Orun). The spirit that returns does so in the form of a Guardian Ori. One's Guardian Ori, which is represented and contained in the crown of the head, represents not only the spirit and energy of one's previous blood relative, but the accumulated wisdom he or she has acquired through a myriad of lifetimes. This is not to be confused with one’s spiritual Ori, which contains personal destiny, but instead refers to the coming back to The Marketplace of one's personal blood Ori through one's new life and experiences. The explanation in The Way of the OrisaThe Way of the Orisha by Philip John Neimark: Publisher HarperOne; 1st edition (May 28, 1993) ISBN 9780062505576 was really quite clear. The Primary Ancestor (which should be identified in your Itefa (Life Path Reading)) becomes - if you are aware and work with that specific energy - a “guide” for the individual throughout their lifetime. At the end of that life they return to their identical spirit self and merge into one, taking the additional knowledge gained from their experience with the individual as a form of payment. Islam The idea of reincarnation is accepted by a few Muslim sects, particularly of the (Ghulat),Wilson, Peter Lamborn, Scandal: Essays in Islamic Heresy, Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia. (1988). ISBN 0-936756-13-6 hardcover 0-936756-12-2 paperback and by other sects in the Muslim world such as Druzes.Seabrook, W. B., Adventures in Arabia, Harrap and Sons 1928, (chapters on Druze religion) Historically, South Asian Isma'ilis performed chantas yearly, one of which is for sins committed in past lives.Char Joog No Chanto - Seeking forgiveness for sins from past lives (Aga Khan IV) Sinan ibn Salman ibn Muhammad, also known as Rashid al-Din Sinan, (r. 1162-92) subscribed to the transmigration of souls as a tenet of the Alawi, who are thought to have been influenced by Isma'ilism. Modern Sufis who embrace the idea of reincarnation include Bawa Muhaiyadeen.see his To Die Before Death: The Sufi Way of Life However Hazrat Inayat Khan has criticized the idea as unhelpful to the spiritual seeker.Gnostic liberation front The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan Judaism Reincarnation is not an essential tenet of traditional Judaism. It is not mentioned in the Tanakh ("Hebrew Bible"), the classical rabbinical works (Mishnah and Talmud), or Maimonides' 13 Principles of Faith, though the tale of the Ten Martyrs in the Yom Kippur liturgy, who were killed by Romans to atone for the souls of the ten brothers of Joseph, is read in Ashkenazi Orthodox Jewish communities. Medieval Jewish Rationalist philosophers discussed the issue, often in rejection. However, Jewish mystical texts (the Kabbalah), from their classic Medieval canon onwards, teach a belief in Gilgul Neshamot (Hebrew for metempsychosis of souls: literally "soul cycle", plural "gilgulim"). It is a common belief in contemporary Hasidic Judaism, which regards the Kabbalah as sacred and authoritative, though unstressed in favour of a more innate psychological mysticism. Other, Non-Hasidic, Orthodox Jewish groups while not placing a heavy emphasis on reincarnation, do acknowledge it as a valid teaching.Aish.com Its popularisation entered modern secular Yiddish literature and folk motif. The 16th-century mystical renaissance in communal Safed replaced scholastic Rationalism as mainstream traditional Jewish theology, both in scholarly circles and in the popular imagination. References to gilgul in former Kabbalah became systemised as part of the metaphysical purpose of creation. Isaac Luria (the Ari) brought the issue to the centre of his new mystical articulation, for the first time, and advocated identification of the reincarnations of historic Jewish figures that were compiled by Haim Vital in his Shaar HaGilgulim.Sha'ar Ha'Gilgulim, The Gate of Reincarnations, Chaim Vital Gilgul is contrasted with the other processes in Kabbalah of Ibbur ("pregnancy"), the attachment of a second soul to an individual for (or by) good means, and Dybuk ("possession"), the attachment of a spirit, demon, etc. to an individual for (or by) "bad" means. In Lurianic Kabbalah, reincarnation is not retributive or fatalistic, but an expression of Divine compassion, the microcosm of the doctrine of cosmic rectification of creation. Gilgul is a heavenly agreement with the individual soul, conditional upon circumstances. Luria's radical system focused on rectification of the Divine soul, played out through Creation. The true essence of anything is the divine spark within that gives it existence. Even a stone or leaf possesses such a soul that "came into this world to receive a rectification". A human soul may occasionally be exiled into lower inanimate, vegetative or animal creations. The most basic component of the soul, the nefesh, must leave at the cessation of blood production. There are four other soul components and different nations of the world possess different forms of souls with different purposes. Each Jewish soul is reincarnated in order to fulfil each of the 613 Mosaic commandments that elevate a particular spark of holiness associated with each commandment. Once all the Sparks are redeemed to their spiritual source, the Messianic Era begins. Non-Jewish observance of the 7 Laws of Noah assists the Jewish people, though Biblical adversaries of Israel reincarnate to oppose. Rabbis who accepted reincarnation include the mystical leaders Nahmanides (the Ramban) and Rabbenu Bahya ben Asher, Levi ibn Habib (the Ralbah), Shelomoh Alkabez, the Baal Shem Tov and later Hasidic masters, and the Mitnagdic Vilna Gaon. Rabbis who have rejected the idea include Saadia Gaon, David Kimhi, Hasdai Crescas, Joseph Albo, Abraham ibn Daud and Leon de Modena. Among the Geonim, Hai Gaon argued in favour of gilgulim. Native American nations Reincarnation is an intrinsic part of many Native American and Inuit traditions. In the now heavily Christian Polar North (now mainly parts of Greenland and Nunavut), the concept of reincarnation is enshrined in the Inuit language. The following is a story of human-to-human reincarnation as told by Thunder Cloud, a Winnebago shaman referred to as T. C. in the narrative. Here T. C. talks about his two previous lives and how he died and came back again to this his third lifetime. He describes his time between lives, when he was “blessed” by Earth Maker and all the abiding spirits and given special powers, including the ability to heal the sick. T. C.’s Account of His Two Reincarnations }} Christianity Though the major Christian denominations reject the concept of reincarnation, a large number of Christians profess the belief. In a survey by the Pew Forum in 2009, 24% of American Christians expressed a belief in reincarnation. In a 1981 Survey in Europe 31% of regular churchgoing Catholics expressed a belief in reincarnation. Geddes MacGregor, an Episcopalian priest who is Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a recipient of the California Literature Award (Gold Medal, non-fiction category), and the first holder of the Rufus Jones Chair in Philosophy and Religion at Bryn Mawr, demonstrates in his book ''Reincarnation in Christianity: A New Vision of the Role of Rebirth in Christian Thought, that Christian doctrine and reincarnation are not mutually exclusive belief systems. New religious movements Theosophy The Theosophical Society draws much of its inspiration from India. The idea is, according to a recent Theosophical writer, "the master-key to modern problems," including heredity. In the Theosophical world-view reincarnation is the vast rhythmic process by which the soul, the part of a person which belongs to the formless non-material and timeless worlds, unfolds its spiritual powers in the world and comes to know itself. It descends from sublime, free, spiritual realms and gathers experience through its effort to express itself in the world. Afterwards there is a withdrawal from the physical plane to successively higher levels of Reality, in death, a purification and assimilation of the past life. Having cast off all instruments of personal experience it stands again in its spiritual and formless nature, ready to begin its next rhythmic manifestation, every lifetime bringing it closer to complete self-knowledge and self-expression. However it may attract old mental, emotional, and energetic karma patterns to form the new personality. Eckankar Awareness of past lives, dreams, and soul travel are spiritual disciplines practiced by students of Eckankar. Eckankar teaches that each person is Soul, which transcends time and space. Soul travel is a term specific to Eckankar that refers to a shift in consciousness. Eckists believe the purpose of being aware of past lives is to help with understanding personal conditions in the present. Practicing students of Eckankar can become aware of past lives, through dreams, soul travel, and spiritual exercises called contemplations. This form of contemplation is the active, unconditional practice of going within to connect with the "Light and Sound of God" known as the divine life current or Holy Spirit. Scientology Past reincarnation, usually termed "past lives", is a key part of the principles and practices of the Church of Scientology. Scientologists believe that the human individual is actually an immortal thetan, or spiritual entity, that has fallen into a degraded state as a result of past-life experiences. Scientology auditing is intended to free the person of these past-life traumas and recover past-life memory, leading to a higher state of spiritual awareness. This idea is echoed in their highest fraternal religious order, the Sea Organization, whose motto is "Revenimus" or "We Come Back", and whose members sign a "billion-year contract" as a sign of commitment to that ideal. L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, does not use the word "reincarnation" to describe its beliefs, noting that: "The common definition of reincarnation has been altered from its original meaning. The word has come to mean 'to be born again in different life forms' whereas its actual definition is 'to be born again into the flesh of another body.' Scientology ascribes to this latter, original definition of reincarnation."Does Scientology believe in reincarnation or past lives? The first writings in Scientology regarding past lives date from around 1951 and slightly earlier. In 1960, Hubbard published a book on past lives entitled Have You Lived Before This Life. In 1968 he wrote Mission into Time, a report on a five-week sailing expedition to Sardinia, Sicily and Carthage to see if specific evidence could be found to substantiate L. Ron Hubbard's recall of incidents in his own past, centuries ago. Meher Baba The Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba stated that reincarnation occurs due to desires and once those desires are extinguished the ego-mind ceases to reincarnate: The power that keeps the individual soul bound to the wheel of life and death is its thirst for separate existence, which is a condition for a host of cravings connected with objects and experiences of the world of duality. It is for the fulfillment of cravings that the ego-mind keeps on incarnating itself. When all forms of craving disappear, the impressions which create and enliven the ego-mind disappear. With the disappearance of these impressions, the ego-mind itself is shed with the result that there is only the realisation of the one eternal, unchanging Oversoul or God, Who is the only reality. God-realisation is the end of the incarnations of the ego-mind because it is the end of its very existence. As long as the ego-mind exists in some form, there is an inevitable and irresistible urge for incarnations. When there is cessation of the ego-mind, there is cessation of incarnations in the final fulfillment of Self-realisation.Baba, Meher, [http://www.discoursesbymeherbaba.org Discourses], Volume III, Sufism Reoriented, 1967, ISBN 1880619091, p. 96. Popular culture In the 2006 movie Pan's Labyrinth the main character is reborn, and returns to a fantasy, or heaven like environment. See also * Afterlife * Bhavacakra * Arthur Flowerdew * Joan Grant * Karmic astrology * Life review * Lifetimes True Accounts of Reincarnation * Past life regression * Planes of existence * Pre-existence * Shanti Devi * Soulmate * Spiritism * Subtle body * Xenoglossy * Zalmoxis References Further reading * Alegretti, Wagner, Retrocognitions: An Investigation into Memories of Past Lives and the Period Between Lives. ISBN 0-9702131-6-6, 2004. * Archiati, Pietro, Reincarnation in Modern Life: Toward a new Christian Awareness. ISBN 0-904693-88-0 * Atkinson, William Walker, Reincarnation and the Law of Karma: A Study of the Old-new World-doctrine of Rebirth and Spiritual Cause and Effect, Kessinger Publishing, 1997. ISBN 0-7661-0079-0. * Baba, Meher, [http://www.discoursesbymeherbaba.org Discourses], Sufism Reoriented, 1967, ISBN 1-880619-09-1. * Bache, Christopher M., Lifecycles, Reincarnation and the Web of Life, 1991, ISBN 1-55778-645-3 * Besant, A.W., Reincarnation, Published by Theosophical Pub. Society, 1892. * Boulting, W. Giordano Bruno, His Life, Thought, and Martyrdom, London: Kegan Paul, 1914. * Bowman, Carol, Children's Past Lives, 1998, ISBN 0-553-57485-X * Bowman, Carol, Return from Heaven, 2003, ISBN 0-06-103044-9 * Cerminara, Gina, Many Mansions: The Edgar Cayce Story on Reincarnation, 1990, ISBN 0-451-03307-8 * Childs, Gilbert and Sylvia, Your Reincarnating Child: Welcoming a soul to the world. ISBN 1-85584-126-6 * Doniger O'Flaherty, Wendy (1980). Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions. University of California Press. ISBN 0520039238. * Doore, Gary, What Survives?, 1990, ISBN 0-87477-583-3 * Edwards, Paul, Reincarnation: A Critical Examination ISBN 1-57392-921-2 * Foltz, Richard, Religions of the Silk Road, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, ISBN 978-0-230-62125-1 * Gyatso, Geshe Kelsang, Joyful Path of Good Fortune, pp 336–47, Tharpa Publications (2nd. ed., 1995) ISBN 978-0-948006-46-3 * Gyatso, Geshe Kelsang, Living Meaningfully, Dying Joyfully: The Profound Practice of Transference of Consciousness, Tharpa Publications (1999) ISBN 978-0-948006-63-0 * Head, Joseph and Cranston, S.L., editors, Reincarnation: The Phoenix Fire Mystery, 1994, ISBN 0-517-56101-8 * Jefferson, Warren. 2009. “Reincarnation Beliefs of North American Indians: Soul Journeys, Metamorphoses, and Near-Death Experiences.” Summertown, TN: Native Voices. ISBN 978-1-57067-212-5 * Heindel, Max, The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception (Part I, Chapter IV: Rebirth and the Law of Consequence), 1909, ISBN 0-911274-34-0 * Leland, Kurt. The Unanswered Question: Death, Near-Death, and the Afterlife. Hampton Roads Publishing (2002). ISBN 978-1-57174-299-5 * Klemp, H. (2003). Past lives, dreams, and soul travel. Minneapolis, MN: Eckankar. ISBN 1-57043-182-5 * Newton, Michael, Life Between Lives: Hypnotherapy for Spiritual Regression, 2004, ISBN 0-7387-0465-2 * Newton, Michael, Destiny of Souls: New Case Studies of Life Between Lives, 2000, ISBN 1-56718-499-5 * Nikhilananda, Swami. Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, (8th Ed. 1992) ISBN 0-911206-01-9 * Prophet, Elizabeth Clare, Erin L. Prophet, Reincarnation: The Missing Link in Christianity, 1997, ISBN 0-922729-27-1 * Palamidessi Tommaso, The Memory of Past Lives and Its Technique, ed. Archeosofica, 1977 * Ramster, Peter, In Search of Lives Past, ISBN 0-646-00021-7 * Rinehart, Robin, ed., Contemporary Hinduism, (2004). * Roberts, Jane. Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul, (1972). ISBN 1-878424-07-6 * Semkiw, Walter, Return of the Revolutionaries: The Case for Reincarnation and Soul Groups Reunited, 2003, ISBN 1-57174-342-1 * Steiner, Rudolf, [http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/KarmRelI/Karm01_index.html Karmic Relationships: Esoteric studies], 8 volumes, various dates, Rudolf Steiner Press. ISBN 0-85440-260-8 and others. * Steiner, Rudolf, A Western Approach to Reincarnation and Karma: selected lectures and writings; ed. and intr. by René Querido. Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, c1997, ISBN 0-88010-399-X * Steinpach, Richard, [http://www.grailforum.com/whybornbook.html Hidden Connections Determine Our Earth-Life], 1988, ISBN 1-57461-013-9 * Stevenson, Ian (1980). Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, second (revised and enlarged) edition, University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0-8139-0872-4 * Taylor, Michael, "Master of the Rose", Comstar Media LLC, 1997–2007, ISBN 1-933866-07-1 * Tucker, Jim (2005). Life Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children's Memories of Previous Lives, ISBN 0-312-32137-6 * Weiss, Brian L., Only Love is real: the story of soulmates reunited, 1996, ISBN 0-446-51945-6 External links * Vedanta Philosophy: Five Lectures on Reincarnation'', by Swami Abhedananda (online Book) *Do We Live More than Once? *Dharma, Transmigration & Reincarnation in the Vedas *Rebirth according to Buddhism *Did Plato Believe in Reincarnation? *Wandering Souls: The Doctrine of Transmigration in Pythagorean Philosophy, by Dr. James Luchte *The Columbia Encyclopedia: Transmigration of souls or Metempsychosis *The Catholic Encyclopedia: Metempsychosis *Jewish view of reincarnation *Did Plato Believe in Reincarnation? als:Wiedergeburt ar:تناسخ az:Reinkarnasiya bg:Прераждане ca:Reencarnació cs:Reinkarnace da:Reinkarnation de:Reinkarnation dv:އާތަމާލަ et:Reinkarnatsioon el:Μετενσάρκωση es:Reencarnación eo:Reenkarniĝo fa:تناسخ fr:Réincarnation fy:Reynkarnaasje ko:환생 hi:पुनर्जन्म hr:Reinkarnacija id:Reinkarnasi ia:Reincarnation is:Endurholdgun it:Reincarnazione he:גלגול נשמות la:Metempsychosis lv:Pārdzimšana lt:Reinkarnacija hu:Lélekvándorlás mk:Реинкарнација mr:पुनर्जन्म mdf:Реинкарнацие nl:Reïncarnatie ja:転生 no:Reinkarnasjon pl:Reinkarnacja pt:Reencarnação ro:Reîncarnare ru:Реинкарнация sq:Rimishërimi si:පුනර්භවය simple:Reincarnation sk:Reinkarnácia sl:Reinkarnacija sr:Реинкарнација fi:Jälleensyntyminen sv:Själavandring tl:Muling pagkakatawang-tao te:పునర్జన్మ tr:Reenkarnasyon uk:Реінкарнація ur:تناسخ vi:Đầu thai yi:גלגול zh:轉世 Category:Esoteric Christianity Category:Esotericism Category:Hindu philosophical concepts Category:Jain philosophical concepts Category:Buddhist philosophical concepts Category:Philosophy of mind Category:Reincarnation Category:Afterlife Category:Shabd paths Category:Death in Greek philosophy Category:Ismaili theology Category:Kabbalah Category:Druze